BETRAYED BY THE BREATH 

Mindfulness of the breath was like rediscovering a long lost friend. Meditations that instructed me to return to the breath were like coming home over and over again. Each time my mind wandered to worries was an opportunity to remind myself that I had an anchor and a home base inside myself. I tried all the various breath meditation instructions. Counting “ooooone…..twooooooo”; saying “breathing in, breathing out”, or just riding the waves of the breath with my awareness, rising on the in breath, pausing at the crest, settling on the outbreath, pausing at the bottom.

I found myself settling in a fundamental way. My morning meditations gave me an unshakeable foundation to face my day. My evening meditations were a full body sigh of relief.

Admittedly, I became a bit of missionary for the breath. I taught breath awareness to my kids, and even shared an app I used with a few of their teachers who used it in class to get them to settle. I tried to teach it to my anxious friend, and found myself getting annoyed when she resisted. I wanted everyone to find their home base inside them like I had.

I started that day the same as always with a glorious, restful breath meditation. Driving to work I was rear-ended by another driver. It wasn’t a big deal, no one was hurt. But the other driver became inexplicable furious, and came to the side of my car, yelling at me, and tried to open my car door, which fortunately was locked. I sat there frozen, shocked, unable to speak or move. I honestly thought that he might kill me. Another car slowed down to check on us, and it seemed to wake him up out of his fury, and he just gave up and drove away. I sat in the car for a while trying to collect myself, and sought solace in my friend the breath. But my breath felt like someone had squeezed all the air out of me. I couldn’t catch my breath. The more I focused on it, the tighter it got, until I thought I might pass out or throw up.

That evening, after I had calmed down from the fender bender incident, I tried again, but the same thing happened. I would bring attention to the breath, and would feel an invisible hand squeezing me, crushing me until I couldn’t catch my breath. My heart would start pounding, and I would start sweating, and then feel nauseous or lightheaded. After about two-weeks, it was still happening, and I went to one of the periodic booster sessions that my mindfulness class has, and told the teacher “ when I focus on my breath, everything gets tight, and its hard to breathe.”

“Noticing what that’s like,” she said, and we did some more practice.

“It’s terrible,” I said in between gasps for air.

She replied, “Noticing how you are relating to what’s happening… Are you trying to change it? Make it better? Push it away? Just letting it be…”

“But I feel like I’m imploding,” I said, kind of desperate.

“And what does imploding feel like? Just noticing that.”

So I did. I counted my breaths and I sat with tightness, and nausea, and gasping for air and noticed what it was like. Then I felt guilty for wanting it to go away, and not just accept and be with it. Day after day, my upward spiral flipped over into a downward spiral. Every day I felt more panicked, worse about myself, but worst of all, betrayed by my best friend. How did I go from loving meditation to hating it?

Like a bad relationship that you can’t leave, I stuck with it, but I made excuses for cutting it short and skipping sessions. The friend who I had introduced to meditation was now raving about it, and I would hear her parroting things I had said. “Coming back to the breath is like discovering your best friend.” I simultaneously wanted to punch her for being so trite and righteous, and at the same time felt a devastating sense of loss, exclusion, and shame. I was no longer part of the club. I somehow had been abandoned by the breath, my friend, my rock, my home, which of course somehow meant that I was, deep down, truly bad and deficient. She excitedly invited me to attend a weekend retreat with her, and I made up a reason that I couldn’t make it.

I think this circle of misery lasted a couple years. I stopped meditating, and largely just moved on to other things, but inside a felt a gaping void of shame and abandonment. It was lingering enough that it caused me to bring it up with another meditation teacher that I happened to meet at a dinner party. Here is my memory of what he told me, or at least the important parts:

He said that he has seen many many people find that the breath is not the best anchor for them, as it’s tied up in all kinds of emotional patterns. He often suggests trying a body part that’s not typically involved in emotions, like the hands or feet, or if nowhere in the body feels safe, then try sounds. What the object is isn’t that important. What’s important is that it’s neutral or even positive for me.

I’m not sure what the right metaphor is, but that conversation was like the ground opening up, or the seas parting or I don’t know, something big, momentous.

The shame and abandonment abated, and was replaced by curiosity. What made me feel safe and at home? I had never asked that question, I had only tried to repair my relationship with the breath, to no avail. But I had never asked, what else? (This pattern is eerily reminiscent of many relationships I have been in, but I digress).

I tried my hands…meh. I tried sounds, but there were so many different ones, I felt more fragmented and distracted. Then I tried my feet, yeah OK, better. It took a bit of time for us to get acquainted, but they grew on me. I took up regular walking meditations, and felt my feet touch the ground with the stability and weight of an elephant. Try to push me over!? I stand still and become rooted into the earth, my mother and source, like a giant Sequoia.

There was another incident. Someone again become very furious with me, and I felt my feet, my ancient roots, and stood my ground, felt large and unshakeable and was even able to respond with compassion. Huh, the feet. They were there all along, carrying me around. They were always my foundation, but I wanted something else, I wanted the breath. Like the nice guy who waits patiently for you to realize that he would treat you better than that asshole you have been dating. Who would have guessed.

But the story doesn’t end there. Yes, after 10 years, my feet have replaced my breath as the more reliable friend, and meditation object. I never was able to return to the breath, but it helps to know that I’m not alone. The feet are an ally, but I have also had sprained ankles and new shoe blisters that have once again reminded me to look for other entrypoints to my homebase, my belonging in the world. The smell of spruce and lilac, the weight of my body, my family at the table, the ways the aspens “shhhhhh” in the wind, the silence of snow.

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